Cowardly Opportunists
David Paul Kuhn and Jonathan Martin write for the Politico:
A president with dismal approval ratings and a bitter intraparty rupture over immigration are obvious problems for Republican politicians.
In recent days, however, the combination is emerging as something less obvious: an opportunity…
Now that those sympathies have somewhat cooled, the effects are visible: Republican House members upset about immigration policy have spoken of Bush in disparaging terms. And presidential contenders like Rudy Giuliani are striking change-the-course themes in their rhetoric, even while continuing to back Bush over the Iraq war.
The change, say GOP operatives, is the absence of fear about being perceived as something less than an ardent Bush backer. “What’s the penalty now, Karl being mad at you?” Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio asked with a laugh, referring to Bush political adviser Karl Rove. “Who cares? Even his former chief strategist (Matthew Dowd) walked away from him and pissed all over him.”
Wow - suddenly they can talk tough, can’t they? Quite interesting to see how brave, how courageous these people are now that Bush has lost the support of just about everyone.
Political opportunists, all of them.
Of course, one cannot blame them. In all honesty, quite some of them probably greatly dislike Bush and, especially, Rove. Quite some of them probably wanted to break with Bush years ago, but lacked the political courage to do so, afraid that Rove would take revenge.
Cowards? Sure. Smart? Yep.
